Cherry Sky Studios: We're just writing, cracking jokes, having a good time

Cherry Sky Studios is a local rap collective comprised of rappers AhbiNav, eL.I.Be, T La Shawn and Rico Polo, and producers Diatonic and Steppenwolf. Right now, they're gearing up to drop their debut album as a crew. As individuals, they've already got projects under their belt, but Red Eye Flight is their first statement as a single entity. Gimme Noise talked to AbhiNav, eL.I.Be, and T La Shawn about the album and their journey in making it a reality.

What artists make up Cherry Sky and how did you guys came together?

AbhiNav: April 2011 is when we started Cherry Sky. Me and T [La Shawn] were part of another group and [eL.I.Be] was actually part of another group, and we were all disbanding at the time. So we were the original three that came together and started Cherry Sky. Now we are up to us three... Rico Polo [and] Rich Garvey, [who] just came on recently. He's on the project but very minimal. Then our two producers, Stefan Wolf and DJ Diatonic. So, that's us right there. That's how we kind of came together, out of unfortunate situations, made some lemonade out of lemons.

I knew of each of you individually but I wasn't totally aware of you guys as a crew.

AbhiNav: I think the biggest misconception, people don't know that T's part of Cherry Sky. They think he's Long Doe because of the Anchormen thing. When me and T were on One Mic [Studios] was when the Anchromen first started, we ran all those first sessions inside of One Mic, so Anchormen is like a Cherry Sky/Long Doe thing, that's the biggest misconception. Those are all our brothers either way, man.

How long has this crew album been in the works?

eL.I.Be: [laughs] About two, two and a half years.

AbhiNav: Since we started, man.

eL.I.Be: We went really hard in the first six tracks, then our attention just kind of diverted to other things.

AbhiNav: I started doing videos, T had the Anchormen, [eL.I.Be] started going with the Escape Artists, a bunch of different stuff.

eL.I.Be: [When] we first started out... We're all individual artists, so we just told everybody, talk to your beat-makers, talk to the people that you work with, just bring a bunch of beats to the table, we'll sit down and collect and just pick out beats. We did that, once that was figured out we just started cranking away. We just started sitting in the studio all together, just doing writing sessions, going back and forth, just knocking it out right then and there.

AbhiNav: The first six, seven tracks we knocked out right away, before Rez Rap was making a name for themselves around here, or even before we knew Tek. Both Garlic Brown and Tek have production on the album. We were just knocking out tracks from our producers, and like a year later [Diatonic and] Stefan came on, so did Rico Polo. Once they came in, we wanted to get them present on the album a little bit more, and that's how the rest of he album kind of came into play. So it was definitely on and off at times, we were focused on different things aside from getting the name out there as well. That's basically how it happened. It was an on and off type thing. The songs, I don't feel like any of them are dated really.

Tell me about your upcoming tour. How did that come about?

eL.I.Be: We went out with Prince Carlton [of Pledge Empire] out in Seattle. We did some shows out there, and on our way back we stopped in Montana.

AbhiNav: We drove out there, man, it was 27 fucking hours.

eL.I.Be: Straight, mind you. We left the last show in Seattle at 2 in the morning and we started driving through fucking Idaho, dude. It was no joke.

AbhiNav: Idaho and Montana. Montana's the biggest state to drive through, man. It sucks. I mean, it was cool, we got our connections and stuff down there. I went out to Denver sometime last year around May, June-ish, so I got some things out there. That's how we got all those connections, we were just riding through getting those, so that's how the tour came about.

eL.I.Be: What I did is I also reached out to Company Costume and Mooonlight Grammar, they also had a tour presence out in Iowa and Denver, so we just collaborated with them, put it all together, and that's how it all came.

AbhiNav: We had those shows so we knew we had to go out there and get the connections, so we went out there just the three of us to make those connections at that point.